New Orleans is undeserved when it comes to healthcare. The whole region is in a piss poor state really. I came across an alarming statistic, among many, at nola.com in a healthcare forum:
20% of Louisiana residents don't have healthcare, that's 1 in 5 or a little over a million people.
There is ONE psychiatric facility serving the New Orleans area - ONE!!! It's full by the way. If someone is experiencing a crisis they sit in area ER for several days until a psych bed can be found, usually it's way out of town like Shrieveport, Baton Rouge, or Lake Charles. I know because they need an ambulance to transport these people. Greatest country in the world?
There is very few out patient clinics, urgicare's, etc in New Orleans and most of the poor are forced to wait until a healthcare crisis occurs and then they show up in their local ER. This costs medicaid 8000 to 10000, and that's if they have medicaid, if not oh well, then they get a huge medical bill in the mail. Greatest country in the world? Crime to be poor?
New Orleans has a perfectly good low income serving hospital - Charity, but it's left abandoned and boarded up since Katrina as the city does everything it can to milk
FEMA for millions more than is needed to re-open it. The city claims that Charity is 50% or more damaged.....BULLSHIT! A few broken windows and the basement got flooded, so don't lie to me Mr.
Mayor.
This was a huge hospital before hurricane Katrina, and now it sits unused while the poor get off the bus and cripple towards Tulane ER to wait 24 hrs or more. Just so the city can scam millions more than is needed to fix it. Disgusting!
The WHO (World Health Organization) ranks healthcare in countries around the world. You know who comes in towards the last? Yep, the US. The first is France, Canada, UK, and on down the line. Canadians, many I know personally, love their healthcare (nothings perfect anywhere). Other than taxes they don't pay a dime when they need medical care. Waits for specialists has improved dramatically, it's still better then our system where only the wealthy or lucky few to have good employers get to have the care they deserve. The whole damn argument has become politicized in this country when we should be learning from neighboring countries on how to care for each other, and by the way, Obama's plan sucks! Single payer is the way to go. Most French and Canadian citizens look down on America's healthcare system with disdain. Hmmm, I wonder why.
Meanwhile, New Orleans seems to have plenty of money to spiff up Canal st, decorate the superdome, and get the street cars rolling, I mean after all, got to keep the tourists rolling in here and frolicking in creole Disney land.
Thank you for telling it like it is. It is pitiful that so many people have no access to an urgent care or a private doctor they can afford, then get pretty much b-slapped when they show up at the ER with untreated otitis that has deafened a child, or diabetes with an A1c of 14.
ReplyDeleteIs anyone in the government capable of doing a cost/benefit analysis? I guess not.
There are a LOT of people whose lives would be vastly improved and who would be much less drain on the health care system (and society) if they could just get to see a general practitioner once a year for their prescriptions, then see a nurse practitioner in an urgent care for minor illnesses and injuries.
You charge $150 to see someone and write them a slew of labs they can't pay for, plus a list of $50 to $90 medications. After they're paid for one round of that, if they're working poor they shrug and accept the reduced lifespan. Then when they're found unconscious or stroked out they rack up a quarter of a million dollar bill or more before they go, use untold resources, and oh, yes, by the way, suffer unimaginably, all because they couldn't get that piece of paper for their $12 worth of medications.
Health care in this country isn't so much broke as stupid.
My sister was unemployed and uninsured the last time her asthma flared up. She went to Tulane and she ended up unresponsive for 30 minutes on the floor at OPP. She died.
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